Council meeting today

Tuesday

Mar 27, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 24, 2012 at 6:53 PM

City officials are considering an offer to purchase the vacant former Carthage Water & Electric Plant administration building on the corner of Third and Grant Streets on the northeast corner of the Carthage Square.

John Hacker

The Carthage City Council meets every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. The next meeting is slated for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 27 at the council chambers at Carthage City Hall on the east side of the Square.

City officials are considering an offer to purchase the vacant former Carthage Water & Electric Plant administration building on the corner of Third and Grant Streets on the northeast corner of the Carthage Square.

The building has been vacant since October 2011 when the city-owned utility moved to the former McCune-Brooks hospital building at 627 W. Centennial Ave.

Tuesday’s Carthage City Council agenda says the council will consider on first reading a council bill to sell the building, at 149 E. Third St. to Alpha Capital LLC.

The council bill will have to be read a second time before it is approved.

No one from CW&EP or Alpha Capital would talk about the sale, saying the sale still needed to be finalized.

The building was the place where Carthage residents went to pay their water, sewer, trash and electric bill for nearly a century.

It was remodeled in the 1990s, but became excess to the utility and the city when CW&EP officials decided to consolidate administrative and customer service operations at the former hospital on Centennial Avenue.

That former hospital became vacant in January 2008 when the current hospital was built on Russell Smith Way in the south end of the city.

Both Missouri Southern State University and the state of Missouri backed away from plans to locate at regional crime lab at the building in the 45 months since the building was shut down.

The Centennial complex spent more than 22 months with no one maintaining it. Mold and water damage from a leaking roof over the former emergency room and x-ray labs took their toll, but in 2009.

In the end, CW&EP spent $3 million renovating the former hospital and the move allowed the utility to consolidate administration, internet service, inspectors and other operations into one building.

In other business, the council will give final votes on measures to annex land owned by David and Connie Haffner, spend $2,885 a shade structure for the Carthage Municipal Pool and vacate a street near 119 E. College Ave.

The council will also hear on first reading two council bills related to regulating chickens in the city limits.

The first one prohibits chickens, as well as turkeys, ducks, geese, mules, horses, sheep, hogs, goats or other domestic livestock from being allowed to run at large.

The second makes a minor change to the ordinance that requires chickens, turkeys and other fowl to be kept no less than 250 feet from a home, church or school.